Rac(e)ing Questions III

36      Behaviour that focuses on food and diet also come within the generic term of deliberate self-harm and, as such, exemplify Susan Bordo's claim that eating disorders need to be interpreted as a physical manifestation of inner conflicts. According to Eichenbaum and Orbach, for the woman who tries to change the shape of her body, this is an indication that she is attempting to change the shape of her life (174). The "shape" of the majority of Melanie's life is unchangeable and out of her autonomous control. Her skin colour is obviously immutable, and it is for this reason, I would argue, that her body size and shape become the focus of her attention. These obviously can be changed with just a little bit of self-control - for example by rejecting the "chunky chips cooked in olive oil" because they are "too fattening" (79). Rigidly governing her intake in this way in order to maintain a certain size stems from Melanie's bodily dysphoria. The prejudicial comments she is subjected to, as well as her familial isolation, are contributory factors in maintaining the belief that her body is not good enough without bodily "changes" or "modifications."

37      It is perhaps significant that it is the skin that is the main locus of the self-harmer. Either by slicing it or by changing its shape through abnormal eating habits, the surface of the body is the focal point of the self-harmer's attention. For many, in fact, "self-injury which does not involve breaking the skin (for example, banging and bruising) is not experienced as so effective or 'satisfying'" (Babiker and Arnold 68). As the boundary between the self and the non-self, as well as that which "contains," skin symbolizes the limits of physical corporeality. The alteration or destruction of its surface indicates a blurring of inside and outside that parallels the lack of self-definition felt by Melanie, Thelma and Irene. As the place where pigmentation resides (that which dictates skin colour), another element can be added to the issue of deliberate self-harm for those with black skin. Because skin hue is arguably the most visible marker of racial difference, it is possible that its laceration could be read as symbolic of a racial self-hatred which results in an attempt to minimize by "interrupting" the pigment content. Because of the whipping, slashing and branding that was cruelly carried out on the skins of slaves, significantly referred to as a "hieroglyphics of the flesh" by one black American critic (Spillers 67) and defined as "the white masters' text" by another (Henderson 71), such self-imposed markings could also "tell a story" of oppression. Deliberate self-harm, whether read symbolically or figuratively, indicates a desire to be something or someone different. This disjuncture between the physical body and the world external to it, which for Irene, Thelma and Melanie, is due to racist, domestic, and societal oppression, can thus be perceived as a way of registering their rebellion and dissatisfaction for those who care to "listen."

38      Instead of adopting a simplistic, monovocal viewpoint, as has been the case in a (largely racist) dominant discourse, Kay's short stories utilize a more dialogic and interrogative form that has the effect, in accordance with Laing's suppositions, of suggesting that mental illness is a social construction with discernible causes. Elaine Showalter claims that "[T]he madwoman is the author's double, the incarnation of her own anxiety and rage" (4). If this is the case then Kay's texts of "madness" could be perceived as not only articulating her characters' anger, but also her own. In this way, her work may be usefully understood as signalling the discomfort of having to inhabit an environment that is inhospitable, and as such can be seen as "a sane reaction to an insane situation."

39      In conclusion, the black female body in Kay's writing is frequently either a sick body, suffering pain and disease, or a body in flux because of racial uncertainties. Such "dis-ease," I have argued, is a means by which the body discursively communicates, "speaking" that which has perhaps previously been unspoken. This article has attempted to show how Kay's texts often associate physical and mental dis-ease with a hostile social environment, causing her protagonists to feel uncomfortable because of their racial status. The external world, which for many of Kay's characters is domestically and racially oppressive, is "translated" into internal states of conflict, which, in turn, reveal themselves as physical or mental illness. Kay's recurrent use of this trope of the sick female body or the fluctuating, uncertain body, is therefore both figurative and metaphorical. Firstly, it is figurative because, in terms of psychosomatic medicine, we know that the mind can powerfully affect the body, and therefore illness (both physical and mental) can occur as a result of a distressed mind. Secondly, the inscription of this link needs to be read metaphorically as an indication that for Kay and, by implication, other black women in Britain, there is a self-dislocation and a dis-equilibrium that is yet to be "healed."

40      Of course, it could be argued that Kay's frequent allusions to sick black feminine bodies reinforces the discourse that has constructed the black person, and particularly the black woman, as the carrier and bearer of disease and contagion. However, I would maintain that by showing the vulnerability of the black feminine body, she is subverting the image of the strong, enduring "mule" who is constructed as being able to bear greater pain than others. In this way, whether metaphorical or not, she is writing the sick body as a means of signalling the need for attention, diagnosis and possible reparation, in the same way that actual illness can be an indication of some other neediness. By articulating racism as that which can, via psychosomatic processes, be the cause of illness, I believe the poet is asking us to reassess these (often unopposed) medical mythologies of blackness.